u/Methixsks

There is no topaz one. I just needed to make that joke.

This is my most recent finished stone: a 4.65ct, 10.3mm electric blue topaz in a modified standard round brilliant. The modification is a slightly shallower pavilion and a much shallower crown to enhance brightness at the cost of some weight, but I'm not too concerned about size. It's all about making the stones look nice, and I think I did a decent job on this one.

Learned a lot about adjusting speed and wheel rotation direction to combat smaller issues, and there was a lot of trial and error on polish, settling on 100k to clean it up. Topaz is interesting to work with, but not my favorite. Oh, and NFS, because rules, haha.

A 1.25ct, 6.5mm Garden Salsa-flavored sunstone from Oregon. With a chip, hence the joke. I'll probably recut the corners later, but I really liked the interplay between the champagne and red in this stone. It had a few more inclusions than I expected, but I'm still enjoying the color play, and hope you all do too, even with the chip.

A little, very green, very heavily (and interestingly) included emerald from Pakistan. Ended up at about 1.25ct, and approximately 7x6mm. He may not be clear or clean, but he's my first little emerald lad that I cut, and I learned a lot about how temperamental emerald can be. Still, I look forward to cutting a few more. Personally, I really like the "gold vein" looking inclusion, and once I saw how messy the stone was, made it my goal to center that in what I feel is an aesthetically pleasing fashion. Photos are taken outside with my phone.

13.0 x 6.8mm "dark paraiba" synthetic corundum cut in a suspiciously elongated hexagon. Not a huge number of facets, but the cutting instructions featured a lot of back and forth to get to the final piece. I do enjoy the final product, but I might need to see it in at least green and red before it becomes a true favorite.

NFS, but if it was, the value is clearly 5.

A 14x10mm pear piece I did for a friend (to be) set in silver. Nanosital is an interesting material. You get an RI like spinel, but it has the hardness and cutting feel of quartz. Less flashy than CZ, but still comes on a plethora of satisfying colors. For this one, it has a nice watery play of light when it moves.

Sorry if this ends up double posted. The initial one didn't take correctly, and is just lost to the void now.

NFS, because it's for my friend. Which, statistically speaking, is probably not you.

A 14x10mm pear piece I did for a friend (to be) set in silver. Nanosital is an interesting material. You get an RI closer to spinel, but it cuts like and has a hardness like quartz. Still, I like how watery it looks when it moves in the light.

It's also just sitting in the setting and still needs properly put in place, but for a test fit, it worked well.

NFS.

A 1.55 ct steely spinel done in Arya's "Aperture Science" with a panic-improvised crown adjustment. Started at 4.17ct, so I'm happy with the yield, too. Also my first spinel.

For the adjustment, I was just finishing a 14k polish on BATT, and thought I should go for a 60k. Well, something was very wrong because the 60k zinc chewed the stone like it was a 180 topper, causing me to need to purposely overcut a couple meets to clean up the deep gouges. Then, the gouging had caused a chip on a corner of where the table would be, so I added a 15 degree "frame" around the table to dig that out.

In the end, I still really like the stone, but there were a lot of unkind words said for a bit there.

NFS

About two years ago, I did a test with a mediocre amethyst rough that was included, and a really nice piece from Uruguay. Same cut (with angles modded for quartz), same size (8mm, I think), same lap sequence. Turns out, while the mediocre one didn't have the final clarity of the fancy one, both ended up looking pretty nice in their own ways. The mediocre looked significantly deader in lower light, though. Unfortunately, I can't find the pictures of the rough, as not everything seemed to get backed up when I changed phones, but either way, shiny rocks. Photos are just my phone camera.

NFS as I don't even have these anymore.

1.24ct Cambodian Zircon (1st-3rd pics), Zircoff (4th pic). Shiny little 6mm round, so that maybe I can set it. Interesting material, mostly played nice once I found the right lap sequence. Honestly felt kind of like topaz, if that makes any sense to people.

NFS (I am selfish and refuse to share)